Chris is careful to apologise for and explain without excusing his conduct, but goes on to argue –

Maybe it was coincidence, but that summer I was the only frontbencher who, with Nick Clegg’s brave backing, called for the Metropolitan police to reopen the voicemail hacking inquiry into Rupert Murdoch’s empire.

Given that I was falling in love with someone who was not my wife, you might think that it was an act of folly to court Murdoch’s hostility,

In its own terms, of course not. Its own self-promoted myth that it was ‘The Sun wot won it’ for the Tories in 1992 with its anti-Kinnock front page belies the reality: it backs the party it thinks is most likely to win.

It’s in that narrow sense that it’s interesting The Sun has declined to back either the Tories or Labour today for the first time in its 44-year history:

Who you choose today must be a local decision, not a national one. Read

The Manchester Evening News has a regular slot in the paper where they get a number of MPs to write an opinion column on topical issues of their choice. This week just happened to be my turn, so I thought that I would comment on the eagerly awaited Leveson report, due out on Thursday.

For those of you who don’t know, the MEN is owned by Trinity Mirror, and along with other major newspaper groups, are totally opposed to independent regulation of the press. They claim that regulation will be the end of freedom of expression. How ironic then, that the …

We’ve all seen poll after poll regularly showing a massive drop in support for our party since the general election – most have us on 8-12% (with the exception of ICM suggesting 14-15%). The president of YouGov claims 10% would reduce us from over 50 MPs to just 10 in 2015. Many of us (myself included) have accepted this as fact – it makes sense. It’s what the polls say. It’s true.

Except, it isn’t.

Last week I heard a new “Wisdom Index” ICM poll had us at 18% and I was stunned. Such levels of support have been unheard of …

If Nick Clegg has time to keep a diary of his time in government (which I doubt) I’d like to pre-order it now. The principle of collective cabinet responsibility, together with the reciprocated determination of he and David Cameron to maintain an effective working relationship, means we don’t often see the reality of the behind-the-scenes battles between the Lib Dems and Conservatives.

Those which are made public — such as Nick’s very public disagreement with the Prime Minister’s veto-that-wasn’t at December’s EU summit — are deftly agreed in advance, allowing some grown-up differentiation to emerge.

There’s no prize at stake – just the opportunity to prove you’re wittier than any other LDV reader…

Here’s Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable, the man who declared war on Murdoch, side-by-side with the man who LOL-ed with News International. What do you think might be being said or thought by or about them?

Tomorrow it’s a year since Willie Rennie became Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader. What have been the highlights of that first year?

Well, on his first day, I interviewed him for Liberal Democrat Voice and you can still listen to that here. He said that his priorities for his first hundred days were to work out what our message was, to sort out our organisation and to get out there and meet people, members and ordinary people on their doorsteps. So how has he done with these things and more?